Investing in our Students!

Grindstone Elementary kindergarten teachers, Amy Murray and Tami Arthur, love to get their kindergarten students excited about science. To accomplish this, they combine their classes on a weekly basis for as many fun experiments and explorations as they can fit into their year. As a result of their efforts, the two Grindstone Elementary kindergarten teachers have received a $400 Education Foundation Enrichment Grant for the 2014-2015 school year. The grant money will be put toward purchasing materials needed for their spring, 2015, unit on oviparous animals

The goal of Murray and Arthur’s oviparous unit is to introduce their students to animals that lay eggs, to let them see and discover how the chicks grow and develop, and to teach them how to take care of them after they hatch. With the grant money, some of the items the teachers will purchase will be fertilized chicken eggs from an educational supply company, an EcoGlow 20 Chick Brooder, a 30 gallon aquarium with a screened top, an Ova Scope, and books. The ova scope will enable the students to observe the chicks as they grow and develop inside the eggs. Chicken eggs have a 21-day incubation period.

During the weeks the eggs are developing the students will write in their journals to respond about their observations and to report on any daily changes in the chicks. Students will be taught how to properly hold, feed, and care for the animals. In addition to observations and journals, other learning activities that will be used are animal life cycle books, videos, art projects, and writing original stories. Students will try to predict how many chicks will actually hatch. The culminating activity will be a field to Lake Farm Park.

When the unit is completed and the chicks are old enough to move on, they will be given to friends who raise chickens to supply eggs for their family’s restaurant.